Parent Gamer

                Make believe was a game I played as a child. With siblings, friends, or even by myself, I would imagine epic battles and fantastical adventures. My siblings and I battled fierce enemies with our martial skills. My friends and I started a Jedi temple and fought to uphold the noble traditions of the Jedi ways. When on my own I would explore untamed and dangerous wilds, armed only with my wits and trusty plastic sword.                 As an adult, social norms dictate that I am not permitted to spend hours in my backyard or a nearby park with a plastic sword or lightsaber, battling invisible enemies or stalking dangerous predators. There is still a part of me that wants to though. There is a desire to conquer, to explore, and to adventure.             ...

    A basic principle of parenting, that I’m sure everyone understands, is protecting your kids from dangerous or harmful media. We don’t let our kids watch scary movies until we think they’re old enough. We don’t give them unsupervised access to the internet until we trust them, at least a little. And (in theory) we don’t buy them violent video games until they reach the appropriate age.    Now what is the appropriate age? For movies, we have the MPAA to tell us how old a person must be before they are allowed to purchase it. For the internet, we have to be more hands on, providing direct guidance on what is and isn’t safe internet browsing. And for video games we have the ESRB. Many parents I talked to while working in a game store, had never heard of the ESRB.    I highly recommend that parents of gamers check out ESRB.org when considering what games they might want to buy for their kids. The Entertainment Software Rating Board has ratings ...

                It’s been almost six years since I last posted on this blog. At the time I worked in a local video game store, a brick and mortal location where I sold video games and accessories, often to parent’s who knew little of the video gaming world. At the time I was frustrated by the ignorance of the parents who would buy the most violent and disturbing of games for their children. Some as young as six years old.                 I would discuss the game, warn them, suggest other titles, but to no avail. “It’s fine,” they would brush me off. “They play Call of Duty or whatever.”                 I created this site with the intention of informing the parents in need, but after only a few posts and dozens upon dozens of conversations, I became disc...

             Maybe parents will remember the Mortal Kombat game found in arcades and on their Sega Genesis.  Terrible graphics, over the top characters, ridiculous finisher moves with neon red “blood” effects.             After nine iterations the game hasn’t really changed. But the graphics and gaming platforms have. Now instead of playing as a poorly rendered cyborg fighting a ninja girl, the gamer will play as a semi-realistic scantily clad ninja woman who is quite busy dismembering her opponent.             The blood effects haven’t gone away but they certainly appear more real. The over the top characters are numerous and some are even disturbing. And the female characters are depicted with, um... generous proportions and little clothing.             And if you recall the over the...

                Minecraft is an immense open world game where players explore and mine a purposefully pixelated environment to build structures, fight monsters, and craft tools. It is highly addicting and immensely entertaining with a surprising amount of creativity. Minecraft is rated for Everyone 10 and older for Fantasy Violence.                 Let’s discuss the Violence. This game has absolutely no blood or gore and the violence level is quite tame. Players can make weapons such as swords and bows to kill each other or animals such as cows, wolves, and chickens. The game is not particularly violent however. In fact, it’s one game I actually recommend parents buy their kids. The player starts in the middle of a randomly generated world with nothing in their inventory and no instructions.      ...

       The Last of Us is being hailed as the very best of the best for Survival Horror fans. It’s rated Mature (M) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, and Strong language, but these barely scratch the surface of what is in this game.             The Last of Us puts the player in the shoes of Joel and Ellie, survivors in a post-apocalyptic world where Zombie-like creatures have infected a portion of the population. Not only do you fight these scary “Zombies,” the game also pits you against tons of desperate and ruthless humans. It’s gritty, brutal, disturbing, and violent. Plenty of weapons such as guns, spiked bats, steel pipes, knives, and even fists are used frequently and there are a number of disturbing things to see both in cut-scenes and gameplay.             The Blood, Gore, and Violence levels in this game are high with exc...

Portal 2 is a first person Puzzle-Platformer game where the player assumes the role of Chell, a woman trapped in a rundown scientific testing center called Aperture Science. Chell is “being tested” by being forced to solve a number of physical puzzles using a Portal gun, a device which allows the player to create transportation doors. The player has two portal colors. She “shoots” a blue door on one wall and an orange door on another wall. The player can then step through the blue door and come out the orange door. The player has to choose where to place the different doors in order to solve each puzzle.  The puzzles are challenging without being impossible. They teach problem solving and some physics. The dialog in the game is quite humorous as well. At times I would stop before completing a level just to hear what the characters may say. It’s fun, entertaining, and clean. Though there are a few things you should know about.       ...